An Indian meditation from 1941.
Words and music by Curtis Williams.
Piano score by Charles Coleman.
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
Way out Southwest
Where the lazy Oklahoma wood winds rest
Where the evening shadows fall
Weird little whippoorwills call
Roving coyotes run and howl
‘Neath the wings of the awkward owl
There’s a traditional old sensation
Out in the Cherokee nation
Refrain
Where the tom toms beat it’s the red man’s cue
Heap Indian sigh, heap Indian blue
When the night birds dream ‘neath the moonlit sky
You could hear the red man’s cry
Him got the Yaw-la-boo-la-hool-a Cherokee-e blues
Big chief lay down his growlin’ pipe of peace
Lay it on the cold cold ground
Keep legs folded with his feathered head hung down
While the tom toms beat out the low sad news
Him got the Yaw-la-boo-la-hool-a Cherokee-e blues
Red man dance to the beat of the tom tom
Round and round and round
As they gaze on high like eagles
Tow’rd their happy hunting ground
While the tom toms beat out the low sad news
It’s the Yaw-la-boo-la-hool-a Cherokee-e blues